Electrical elements such as batteries, supercapacitors, and fuel cells contain electrodes which generate electric currents through electrochemical reactions.
A typical electrode contains an active material which confers the property of cathode or anode, a conductive material to enhance conductivity, and is in the form of having a composite mixture of the active material and conductive material attached to the current collector through a binder.
Typically, the method of forming a layer of active material and conductive material on the electrode has been to prepare a slurry of active material and conductive material with a binder by mixing in a solvent, then directly coating the surface of the current collector with this slurry.
However, electrodes prepared by the conventional slurry coating methods are not suitable for the development of high performance electrical elements. This is because in the conventional method, the active material and conductive material are physically attached using a binder, which leads to some active material and conductive material becoming buried in the binder, resulting in less contact between the particles of active material or conductive material.